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More quick movement - 27 October 2007
Oct. 28th, 2007 03:00 amDay started early. Took me longer to drive to the lab and back than the actual procedure. And then there was futzing about and listening to padded rugby (Victory!) and playing board games as usual. Although I had a few rounds at the Guilty Gear XX revision for Wii, and did all right. Knowing that Microsoft is probably just exercising server rules when comments don’t get through, I shifted comment notification over to a different source, which hopefully does not start sending them all to /dev/null before I get a chance to look at them. All in all, a productive day. I feel like I should go to bed now and finish this entry in the morning.
Ms. Rowling’s revelations have far-reaching effects, to even the point where a community devoted to Severus was dissolved because the founder could not stand that canon would include a homosexual in it. If a footnote revelation causes this kind of renewed anger over the series, I’m sure plenty will be said when The Golden Compass movie arrives in December. The books do not hide that they find the Church of Lyra’s world to be almost anything but what a church should be. We’ll have to see what kind of furor this generates. You can’t see it, but there’s a dark Chesire Cat grin going on here.
Sexual orientation is genetic in worms, according to a study recently conducted at the University of Utah. This comes from genes that are completely “male” or “hermaphroditic”, and each gender only receives one type. But by transplanting appropriate “male” genes into the hermaphrodites, the hermpahrodites behaved like the males do, seeking out other hermaphrodites to mate with. Of course, there’s not any guarantee that this holds true for Humes, but if we can work our way up the chains and this gene thing holds true, we may have an answer as to how homosexuality comes about. On these sorts of things, part of me is happy, because we will know the answers, and part of me wants it to fail, so that people don’t start asking the doctors to abort or try to genetically manipulate babies that have the gene makeup for homosexuality. If we were okay with gays (and I mean really okay, not just lip service), then I wouldn’t be as concerned.
Former United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was served a lawsuit in Paris today, alleging that he authorized torture during his tenure as defense secretary. I don’t think Mr. Rumsfeld can be sued or prosecuted in the United States, but internationally, he’s still potentially subject to these items. I don’t know if it will go anywhere. In any case, if you would like to see one of the techniques currently being used on detainees, have a look at a video demonstrating the technique of waterboarding. Now that you’ve seen it done, you can decide whether something like that is torture.
The United Nations continues to warn us that population and consumption are running beyond the sustainability of the planet, and that better stewardship is needed if we want to avoid major extinction events or violent corrections.
Our “Wrong way, Corrigan” department serves up the appetizer for tonight’s competition - two signs in men's rooms advising women of the dangers of smoking while pregnant. That’s right - signs in the men’s room about problems that can happen when pregnant women smoke.
Picking up a photocopy of the quiche tonight is FEMA, which called a fake press event, using staffers as reporters to ask questions, rather than the real reporters for various magazines. It was a press release, really, on video, but it was dressed up to look like an actual press conference.
The real quiche, however, goes out to whomever it was that displayed the e-mail addresses of all the Department of Justice whistleblower's e-mail addresses in a mass-mailing that included Vice President Cheney as a recipient. Yep, all those people who were told their information would be held in strictest confidence just had a confidence breach. You know what the “b” in bcc stands for, right? Blind. Will we see fallout from this? I don’t know.
Better late than never - A student who was serving a ten-year jail sentence for having consensual oral sex with another teenager was released today, after the Georgia Supreme Court found the sentence "grossly disproportionate" to the crime. This is after the student served more than two years of his sentence, one of them after the Georgia Legislature passed a law that reduced sentences of consensual sex between teenagers to a maximum of one year in prison. It’s still illegal, mind you, but you’ll only have to spend a year in prison, maximum, if you want to fool around with someone under the consent limit, and are teenaged yourself. (As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
przxqgl points out, if you're an adult, then the penalties are much harsher.)
It’s still perfectly legal to rank the relative attractiveness of animated women, of course.
People still believe lots in supernatural things. Just the kind of thing to appear in time for the holiday that’s supposed to be about supernatural things. And that will get paired with urban legends that happened to have happened.
Last for tonight, though, are pictures (yay, pictures) from Japan's Great Robot Exhibition.
And I think we’re supposed to shift our clocks or something. Anyway, g’night.
Ms. Rowling’s revelations have far-reaching effects, to even the point where a community devoted to Severus was dissolved because the founder could not stand that canon would include a homosexual in it. If a footnote revelation causes this kind of renewed anger over the series, I’m sure plenty will be said when The Golden Compass movie arrives in December. The books do not hide that they find the Church of Lyra’s world to be almost anything but what a church should be. We’ll have to see what kind of furor this generates. You can’t see it, but there’s a dark Chesire Cat grin going on here.
Sexual orientation is genetic in worms, according to a study recently conducted at the University of Utah. This comes from genes that are completely “male” or “hermaphroditic”, and each gender only receives one type. But by transplanting appropriate “male” genes into the hermaphrodites, the hermpahrodites behaved like the males do, seeking out other hermaphrodites to mate with. Of course, there’s not any guarantee that this holds true for Humes, but if we can work our way up the chains and this gene thing holds true, we may have an answer as to how homosexuality comes about. On these sorts of things, part of me is happy, because we will know the answers, and part of me wants it to fail, so that people don’t start asking the doctors to abort or try to genetically manipulate babies that have the gene makeup for homosexuality. If we were okay with gays (and I mean really okay, not just lip service), then I wouldn’t be as concerned.
Former United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was served a lawsuit in Paris today, alleging that he authorized torture during his tenure as defense secretary. I don’t think Mr. Rumsfeld can be sued or prosecuted in the United States, but internationally, he’s still potentially subject to these items. I don’t know if it will go anywhere. In any case, if you would like to see one of the techniques currently being used on detainees, have a look at a video demonstrating the technique of waterboarding. Now that you’ve seen it done, you can decide whether something like that is torture.
The United Nations continues to warn us that population and consumption are running beyond the sustainability of the planet, and that better stewardship is needed if we want to avoid major extinction events or violent corrections.
Our “Wrong way, Corrigan” department serves up the appetizer for tonight’s competition - two signs in men's rooms advising women of the dangers of smoking while pregnant. That’s right - signs in the men’s room about problems that can happen when pregnant women smoke.
Picking up a photocopy of the quiche tonight is FEMA, which called a fake press event, using staffers as reporters to ask questions, rather than the real reporters for various magazines. It was a press release, really, on video, but it was dressed up to look like an actual press conference.
The real quiche, however, goes out to whomever it was that displayed the e-mail addresses of all the Department of Justice whistleblower's e-mail addresses in a mass-mailing that included Vice President Cheney as a recipient. Yep, all those people who were told their information would be held in strictest confidence just had a confidence breach. You know what the “b” in bcc stands for, right? Blind. Will we see fallout from this? I don’t know.
Better late than never - A student who was serving a ten-year jail sentence for having consensual oral sex with another teenager was released today, after the Georgia Supreme Court found the sentence "grossly disproportionate" to the crime. This is after the student served more than two years of his sentence, one of them after the Georgia Legislature passed a law that reduced sentences of consensual sex between teenagers to a maximum of one year in prison. It’s still illegal, mind you, but you’ll only have to spend a year in prison, maximum, if you want to fool around with someone under the consent limit, and are teenaged yourself. (As
przxqgl points out, if you're an adult, then the penalties are much harsher.) It’s still perfectly legal to rank the relative attractiveness of animated women, of course.
People still believe lots in supernatural things. Just the kind of thing to appear in time for the holiday that’s supposed to be about supernatural things. And that will get paired with urban legends that happened to have happened.
Last for tonight, though, are pictures (yay, pictures) from Japan's Great Robot Exhibition.
And I think we’re supposed to shift our clocks or something. Anyway, g’night.
